


A Study In Pink

by afteriwake



Series: The Adventures Of S. Holmes & R. Watson [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - John Watson Is Fictional, Assassin Mary Morstan, BAMF Mary, Developing Sherlock Holmes/Mary Morstan, Episode Rewrite: s01e01 A Study in Pink, Eventual Friendships, Eventual Relationships, F/M, First Meetings, Getting to Know Each Other, Mary Morstan & Mike Stamford Friendship, Mary Morstan & Sherlock Holmes Friendship, Mary's Past, Molly Hooper/Mary Morstan Friendship, Nice Mary Morstan, Old Friends, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Mary Morstan, Pre-Sherlock Holmes/Mary Morstan, Roommates, Sherlock Holmes Makes Friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2019-07-24 10:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16173236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: Rosamund Mary Watson had never expected to set foot in London again, but she finds herself in need of employment and a better flat. Enter her old professor Mike Stamford, who tells her about the man who will change her life forever...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dreamin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamin/gifts).



> This was originally a prompt suggested by **Dreamin** when I asked for more AU Marylock prompts (" _Instead of John Watson, it's Mary Morstan that Stamford introduces Sherlock to when both of them say they're looking for flatmates. (Cue Sherlock falling for his pretty and sassy flatmate.)_ ") that was recently claimed by **marcceh** for the steady reaching of my next fic milestone. This is both a multipart fic that rewrites the very first episode of Sherlock _and_ a series that will include rewrites of _all_ the episodes.

She had never planned on coming back to England. Not in a million years, but when you’re ex-CIA and considered RED, it’s rather a good idea to get as far away from the United States as possible. And while England wasn’t clear across the world, it was far enough away and she had...connections...here, both for good and for ilk. She’d be safe enough, she thought.

She hadn’t expected to be in a dingy flat, though. She’d saved her money well, but the cost of buying a foolproof identity...aside from parts of her name. She hadn’t been Rosamund Mary in so long, but being back here in Britain, especially deciding to reside in London, there was no point in taking a genuinely fake name. Just a dead husband that didn’t exist. Rosamund Mary Watson sounded good enough, and she could always fill in the details of who her husband John had been with bits and pieces of her ideal man. If she had to marry, might as well marry well, right?

But even fictional marriages had their cost, and the fiction revolving around her life from university to now had cost her a pretty penny, not leaving her much for decent lodgings. So that meant two things: a job and a better flat.

Job first, though.

She was thankful she’d taken an interest in nursing when she’d been balancing her...other duties. The ones that left her in distaste after The Incident in Afghanistan, the one that left her with a bullet in the leg. Modifications to her workload could be made to deal with the cane, not that she hoped to need it much longer. She was diligent about doing the physio she had been told, even if the physiotherapist here in London was a twat. But she took what she could get.

Irene had a lovely sense of humour, though, so she had a rather nice cane with a hidden sword in it. It would be a shame to part with it when she didn’t need it anymore.

But for the moment she was enjoying a brisk afternoon outside, taking in the city again and debating whether she should attend therapy or not. Oh, there were loads of issues in her life without even touching on her job as an assassin to talk over. Her childhood had been rather hellish with abuse, both physical and verbal with a touch of emotional, and her anger issues that she had worked so hard to control and her need for perfection…

She just hated her therapist. That didn’t help. Perhaps it was time to find another one?

In the meantime, she had taken up blogging. Not her own blog, not yet, but she would peruse the various sites and see if there was one that fit her. So far, she’d been out of luck, but she’d gotten a handle on the various forms of social media that, could she want to, she could make quite the name for herself.

She could do whatever the bloody hell she wanted, to be quite frank, and there was fuckall any major government could do about it. It was a better position to retire in than most of her colleagues at the CIA.

And it certainly wasn’t a body bag and her name on a plaque on a wall for service to a country that wasn’t even hers, which was a plus.

“Rosie?”

She turned her head and saw someone who looked vaguely familiar. Bigger, definitely a few stones fatter, but it was so so good to see his face. Mike Stamford had been one of her professors in uni, when she’d taken some elective courses at Barts. “Mike!” she said with a warm smile. “Good to see you.”

“It’s been ages,” he said, smiling at her and giving her a warm embrace. She hugged him back as her brain catalogued the various scents and textures she encountered. It was just a thing she did but it had saved her arse so many times. “How goes it?”

“Good, good,” he said. He extended his hand to the door of the restaurant in front of him. “Are you busy? We can catch up during lunch. I’m starved but I got an hour and a half from Barts on account of some mad experiment our resident consulting detective is running. I expect to find my office destroyed at the end of it.”

“Surely he can’t be that bad?” she asked.

“He’s not, but he can be an arse. When he has his head in an experiment, though...single-minded focus like a laser.” Stamford chuckled. “Reminds me quite a bit about you, actually.”

“Tell me more about your resident mad scientist, then,” she said, taking his arm as they headed into the restaurant. This was definitely better than therapy, she decided. Who knew where a friendly chat could lead?


	2. Chapter 2

It didn’t take long into Stamford’s tales of the infamous Sherlock Holmes for her to decide she wanted to meet him. And when Stamford told her the man had a flat he was trying to look for a flatmate for...well, that was _right_ up her alley. The more Stamford told her about the man the more she just knew the lodgings would be a massive step above where she was laying her head now.

The took a cab to Barts. It had been quite a few years since she had been there but there was still so much that had been familiar. If life had been different she would have been fairly sure she’d be working there, that Stamford would have pulled whatever strings necessary. But at least now he was doing something to help her out of a plight. She thought they were going to head to whatever laboratory the resident mad genius was holed up in, but Stamford pressed the basement button on the lift and she gave him a look.

“You have an old friend who works here,” he said, a twinkle in his eyes.

“What, you animated Stephen the Skeleton and put him to work?” she asked with a laugh.

“No, this friend is human. I kept tabs on her after your electives together as I’d tried for you and while you went off and disappeared. She went the medical school route and I poached her as soon as she finished her residency.” He shook his head. “Molly is going to be so surprised you went off and became part of the military.”

“Well, it paid the bills,” she said with a smile. She was looking forward to seeing Molly Hooper again if she was still indeed Hooper. Stamford had said nothing about her at all so she had no idea what to expect.

The lift doors opened and they made their way to the morgue, a distinct “thwap-thwap-thwap” sound coming from the main room. Stamford nodded towards the viewing area and she saw a woman with a ponytail standing there, watching. They went to the viewing room and joined her there. Stamford cleared his throat and the woman turned around, revealing it was Molly Hooper. “Rosie!” she said, pulling herself away from the viewing window and going to hug her friend.

She hugged Molly back after leaning her cane against the wall. “Today is the day of familiar faces,” she said warmly. “But I go by Mary for the most part now. Rosie caused some derision amongst former coworkers.”

“Of course,” Molly said, stepping back to look. “What happened?”

“Gunshot wound in Afghanistan,” she said with a slight shrug. “Discharge from the military and a pension and all that. But well worth it to be back home.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re back,” Molly said, giving her another hug.

“What is that sound?” Stamford asked.

“Riding crop against the skin,” Mary said absently.

“How did you…?” Molly asked. They drifted back to the window and saw, in fact, a tall man with curly black hair hitting a corpse with a riding crop.

“I have met some interesting people over the years,” she said. “And that includes a dominatrix or two.”

Stamford chuckled. “Molly, that is a John Doe, right?”

“It’s not anyone that would have minded, and it’s for one of his cases,” Molly said, turning back to the window. “You said he can have two body parts a week and use of any corpse we don’t have to send to a funeral home as long as it’s here at Barts.”

“So I’m taking it this is your resident mad genius?” Mary asked Stamford.

“Yes, this is Sherlock, though I expected he’d be in his labs.” Stamford checked his wrist to see what time it was and then frowned. “I have to dash, but Molly, when Holmes is done and back in his lab, take Rosie...I mean, Mary...up there?”

Molly nodded. “Alright.” Stamford left and Molly turned to Mary. “At least he didn’t chide me about the crush.”

“You fancy Sherlock?” Mary asked with a smile.

“A bit, yeah. I mean, I doubt he’s the type for a relationship, but it’s nice to dream.” Then Molly grinned widely. “Let’s get a cuppa while he works. I have an electric kettle and a decent set of mugs in the office, far away from...that.”

“You can’t tell me you don’t imagine him using that crop on you?” Mary teased as Molly blushed.

“Among many things,” she said.

“Please, do share over tea,” Mary said with a chuckle as she took her cane again. Molly blushed more but there was a mischevious look in her eyes, and Mary knew that going out and skipping a therapy session had been a good idea after all.


	3. Chapter 3

It was nice to catch up with Molly. Her office was close to the morgue but not too close, and the sound had dulled. Not that the sight had done anything for _her_ , really; she had her own set of kinks and a riding crop to the arse was not one of them. But the glimpse of Holmes doing that had told her one thing, at least: should her past ever come back to haunt her, he could hold his own.

“So you fancy him? Holmes?” Mary asked.

“A bit, yeah,” Molly said, shaking her head. “But he’ll never see me that way. He never sees _anyone_ that way, as far as I can tell. But you’re going to try and room with him! I wish you the best of luck.”

“Why?” she asked. She knew it was best to get facts about multiple sides of a person’s personality before making any decisions on a roommate situation.

“Well, he’s prickly,” Molly said. “He isn’t very open about things, rather gruff. But he can be nice. I suppose he tolerates me because I’m useful, but he’s never as sharp with me as he is with others.”

“That’s something, at least, but I’ve dealt with worse,” Mary said with a reassuring smile. Yeah, they wouldn’t get on perfectly, she thought to herself, but she wasn’t the type to be open and share the bits of her past either.

“His deductions are eerily accurate,” she said. “With a glimpse, it’s almost like he can sum you up to the essentials of your being.”

That...was admittedly more problematic, but she’d just have to deal with what came as it came in regards to her potential flatmate. “Could be a parlour trick,” she said.

“I don’t think it is. He’s just that good,” Molly said. “But let’s talk about other things. If we want any time to catch up it’s best not to talk about Sherlock. He usually takes that as a signal to be seen around the corner.”

“Like a ghost?” Mary asked with an amused smile on her face this time.

“Yes, rather like a ghost,” Molly said. With that, they launched into a conversation of what had been going on the past few years. Mary kept her musings on married life to a minimum as she’d fleshed her John Watson out but didn’t want to drop too many details at once. But Molly seemed convinced she’d had a brief, somewhat happy marriage and a fulfilling life, and after their chat, they made their way to the upstairs lab where Holmes worked.

She leaned on her cane as Molly knocked on the door and then opened it, hanging back. The man was peering into a microscope. “Stamford said he might have solved your flatmate problem,” she said, but he still didn’t look up. “I mean if you don’t mind a female flatmate.”

“Iraq or Afghanistan?” Sherlock asked.

“Afghanistan,” Mary said, moving in more. “Gunshot wound to the thigh.”

“It’s psychosomatic,” he said.

“Yeah, I have that feeling, but still haven’t broken out of it yet,” she said. Oh, he was good. That was a hunch she’d had about her wound for a while now, that it was more in her mind than any real lingering injury. That caused him to look up. “Mary Watson. Also known as Rosie, but please, don’t use that particular name. Trying to put the past behind me.”

“I can see that,” he murmured. “May I have use of your phone?” She nodded. The things he didn’t need to see were well encrypted and a cursory glance wouldn’t show much. She handed him her mobile and he opened up the text messaging, tapped something out and then handed it back. “Bad habit of mine. I don’t like having my mobile on me. Makes it easier for Big Brother to trace me.”

“Understandable,” Mary said with a nod, pocketing her mobile back in her coat. “About housing...you _are_ looking for a flatmate, right?”

“Yes,” he said. “Tomorrow, seven in the morning. 221B Baker Street.” He nodded to the cane. “Try not using that for the rest of the day.”

She raised an eyebrow and then looked at him. “You think you can cure me so easily?”

“I hate the thudding sound of a cane on the floorboards,” he said, giving her a half-grin. “Try. I suppose I can manage one bad habit if you can manage that.”

“You drive an interesting bargain, Mister Holmes,” Mary said. This was almost fun, this conversation with him. She hadn’t had such an excellent verbal pairing with anyone in a long time. This was almost like flirting. “We’ll see what I can do, so long as you hold up your end.”

“Good,” he said. “Molly, coffee? Black, two sugars.”

Molly started to nod and Mary shook her head before he spoke. “Only get him coffee if he pays and it’s at a coffee shop. You’re not his errand girl, you have your own important work here to do.”

Sherlock looked over at her, an amused smile on his face as he tilted his head. “You are a fascinating woman, Rosie.”

“Call me Rosie again and you won’t like what happens,” she said, a sweet smile on her face but steel in her voice.

“Understood,” he said, pushing away from the microscope. “Molly, will you join me for coffee? My treat.”

“I’d like that,” Molly said, a wide smile on her face as she turned to Mary and Mary gave her a thumbs up.

“Then let’s be off. Tomorrow morning...Mary,” he said, the amused smile still on his face as he went for his greatcoat.

“Tomorrow morning, Holmes,” Mary said with a nod. Soon he and Molly left the lab, leaving her alone, and she started to wonder exactly what she had gotten herself into.


End file.
